Step 12: Demo Video

Step 13: Random Stills

Anyways, I hope this instructable helped you out. And good luck in building your own pack! It was a much bigger undertaking then either Jess or I thou...

This is a semi step-by-step guide of how my girlfriend Jess and I built our Ghostbusters proton packs for Halloween 2008! We ended up spending just under a month and just over $200 on each pack. Not including random tools here and there that we needed.

No expensive lightboards or sound packs here. This is 100% homemade and on the cheap.

Step 1: Costumes

The costumes themselves were simple as hell and only took a night to do.

Flight suits off of Amazon.comParatrooper Belts off of Amazon.comBoots off of Amazon.com

Then a couple custom patches off of Ebay to read 'Hogan' and 'Morrison' and of course the No Ghost symbols and we were pretty much good to go!

Just a few details needed adding like the gloves, circuit board (which were junked old sound cards) and some random tubing which can be found easily at Home Depot.

But in making a Ghostbusters costume remember...90% of the work in the pack.

Step 2: Cutting the Motherboard

To start off we cut the 'motherboard' out of masonite board we found at Home Depot. This is the same stuff you'll find clip boards made out of. Just a much bigger sheet of it. We then downloaded the blueprints we needed from [ GBFans.com]GBFans.com and cut away using a Dremel. This made a HUGE mess by the way, so do yourself a favor and either cut it outside or in a space that's easily cleanable like a bathroom.

dear zombiedug i am also trying to build a proton pack as im just wanting you to know that i am inspierd to build one with your premisson could you please email me the instrutions for me to build one. thank you

how much is the final weight? you seemed to use a lot of wood, and in the ones my club and i have always made have as little wood is possible (mostly pvc - we make one or two wood packs then vacuu-form {did i spell that right?}), and they're still a good 10 or so pounds.

Since most of it is made out of insulation foam, the heaviest part is the motherboard and frame. The motherboard is made out of particleboard, so it's very dense but much lighter than your regular milling woods. In the end the final pack only weighs 5 or so pounds.

2 years later and I'm still blown away by how much you all like the packs! I'm currently working on a "part 2" to this instructable on how to add arduino controlled lights and sound...and even a rumble pack for the gun! Schematics, code, the works. So keep your eyes open, because I should have it up just after Halloween with pictures and a new demo video!

You could probably make a similar frame out of PVC fairly cheap and pick up a used backpack at your local goodwill-type store fairly cheap and find a way to attach the straps to the PVC frame, after you have painted the frame of course.

Sorry, not really. That's kind of the one thing that's an absolute necessity for this project. The best thing I could offer would be the check your local Army surplus store though. They might have it for cheaper than what you're finding online. Good luck!

Hi, I have to make 30 proton packs for a special needs camp next summer. Can the mold make many wands can it make? Also, do you think they end up sturdy enough for kids to use the whole summer? Thank you.

If you follow the recommendation of the silicon grade I used to make the mold of the gun box, you can easily get 30 made. As for the question about the sturdiness of the packs, that really comes down to how much time and care you put into constructing it. Instead of using a glue gun, you could always use epoxy for example. But you still need to be careful or yes, the packs will break since it's made out of foam predominantly. Good luck on your build! Sounds like it's for a great cause.

It's an invisible picture hanger. Basically just a bracket that lays flat with another sister bracket. Pretty much every hardware store should have it, just ask an employee. Because when we were looking for one they were hidden in a weird corner of the store.